Diamond Warriors

I sat listening to the crickets chirping nearby and the roaring of a lion farther out on the grass. And I rapped my diamond ring against her crystal and said, 'But you can't keep this future from happening, can you?'

'Can't I? Don't we, in the end, choose our futures?'

'I always thought we could. But if every path leads only to destruction and doom, what is there to choose?'

'But I can't see everything! There must a chance — at least one! beautiful beautiful chance.'

'There must be,' I said, feeling the quick pulsing of the vein along her wrist. 'But what if there isn't?'

'If there isn't, if the tree is truly withered beyond hope, then the One must be able to breathe life back into it. Somehow, this impossible grace — it must be possible. I have to believe that. And so must you.'

I touched my sword's scabbard, which covered the inscription etched into the silustria. I asked her, 'Have you seen all of what is written here?'

'No, I haven't,' she told me, shaking her head. 'But I have seen you seeing it. There will come a moment — I know there will.'

'And then?'

'And then I don't know!'

She began shaking again as if from cold, although the evening continued warm. The wind, moving slowly across the earth, carried the distant booming of our enemy's war drums. I lifted up Atara's hand to press my lips to her skin, and I could almost hear the deeper drumming of her heart.

'Tomorrow,' she told me, 'when I lead the Manslayers against the Marituk, our arrows will sweep them from the field — I know they will. But we will have to ride far afield, so very, very far. I can't see how our paths will cross during the battle, Val.'

'No — neither can I,' I said, kissing her fingers.

'And after the battle, it will be. . after.'

I suddenly could not bear the sight of her crystal sphere, nor the visions that she saw within it. And so I took it from her and buried it beneath the edge of her cloak.

'And now,' she murmured, 'it is now. For you and me, this is the only moment that ever is, don't you see?'

And with that, she kissed my hand, then pulled my arm around her to draw me closer. She kissed my mouth, my nose, my eyes, then returned to pressing her lips against mine with a fierce desire. She pulled at me with her hands and the force of her quick, hot inhalations as if she wanted to breathe my very soul into her.

'I want your child, Val,' she murmured. 'At least, its beginning inside me.'

'A child you will never live to see?'

'I don't know that,' she said. And then, 'Do you really love me?'

I felt her hands all warm and urgent against mine.

'Atara,' I finally said to her, sitting back to gasp for air, 'we only ever have this moment — that is true. But if we win tomorrow, we will have millions of moments — all the nights of our lives — for love.'

'Are you asking me, then, to keep inside what I can't bear to keep inside … as a faith in victory?'

'Faith, yes,' I said to her. 'We've come so far on almost nothing else. And we will need all our faith tomorrow.'

'I know you are right: we must at least act as if we can win,' she told me. I felt the chill of duty and acceptance begin to take hold of her. 'What could love possibly matter at a time like

this?'

She folded her hands across her lap, and held her head utterly still. I listened to her deep breathing, even as I knew she listened to me. I sensed the hurt of her side where she had been wounded and adeeper pain within her chest. Her dreadful vision, I thought, had hollowed out her heart, nearly emptying her of hope. I felt this in my heart as a coldness and a darkness that sent terror shooting through me. I wanted to grasp hold of her then and never let go; I wanted to fill up this black nothing with all the fire and light I could find.

Without either of us speaking a word, at the same moment, our hands reached out toward each other. They met in the space between us, and our fingers twined and then suddenly locked together in the shock of knowing what we must do. I pulled at her, fiercely, even as she pulled at me; the force of our tensed limbs and bodies drew us together with a greater shock of lips bruising against lips in a kiss so savage with years of longing that it seemed that we were trying to devour each other. I smelled myrrh and musk in her hair, and tasted blood on her tongue. Her hand tightened around mine with such a terrible need that I thought our fingers might break.

Then we let go of each other, she to lift off my tunic and I to tear away the leather armor encasing her belly and breasts. When we had made ourselves naked, we fell at each other again in a fever to press skin against skin as if our desire could sear our flesh together as one. She lay back against her furry cloak and opened herself to me: her arms, her legs and that bright, beautiful thing deep inside her that had pierced my heart the moment I had first set eyes upon her. I knew I had to be careful lest I aggrieve the raw, red wound still seaming her side. But she didn't want me to take care, and she had none for herself. And so we pulled at each other like ravenous beasts, sweating and moaning and breathing in each other's breaths as if we could never get enough of each other. But we were like angels, too, for in our blaze of passion, we called each other higher and higher, where the deepest radiance pours as from an inexhaustible source.

For a moment, we returned to our star. It pulled us straight into its fiery heart, burning away time and the grasses of the steppe all around us, annihilating whole armies and the very world itself. And then we both screamed together as one: I because I could not bear the ecstasy passing back and forth between us like a lightning bolt, and she to feel me filling her up with love and light and burning raindrops of life.

Afterward, we lay holding each other. The soft beauty of her body, no less the sweetness of her soul, held me as within a dream that I had never quite dared to dream. It came to me that I had been a fool: wasting my blood and breath fighting a war to end war and living for a higher purpose. What could be more exalted, I asked myself, than the wild joy that Atara and I had made together? Was this not the will of the One and a song to all of creation? Was it not the One's deepest desire to pour itself out through us in a brilliant blaze of divine love?

Lions, Atara told me, when it comes their time, mate nearly continually for most of a day. We did not have a whole day together, only part of an hour. And really, only a moment: it was all anyone ever had. We spent it loving with all the fire and delight we could find. Then, after our hour was done and we had to ride back to our encampment, we both wept because it seemed that we would never come together as a man and a woman again.

When we walked through the opening to my tent, Liljana had just finished setting out dinner on the council table. Our friends — all except Kane — stood by the chairs there, as did the Seven. Liljana took one look at Atara and me, and seemed instantly to sniff out what had happened between us. Her manner was one of deep concern, but warm and welcoming, too. She beamed her blessings at us, and then insisted that we fill ourselves with some good food.

'I was afraid that your duties would keep you elsewhere,' she said to us as we took our places at the table. 'But I'm so glad you are here. After tomorrow, who knows when we'll have a chance to sit down to a meal together again?'

Liljana set out before us yellow rushk cakes with honey and muffins made of fine white flour. She had roasted three kinds of meat: some little steppe chickens and a tenderloin of sagosk and a whole ham that she had reserved just for this night. She had also used a few jars of strawberry preserves to bake some pies. Daj loved strawberries, and so did Maram.

'I made a blackberry tart, too, for Kane,' she told us. 'If he ever arrives.'

'Ah, well,' Maram said, 'he probably had business elsewhere.'

'He has had all day to take counsel with captains and kings. But what could be more important than spending this evening with his friends? If Val and Atara can come to dinner on time, why